![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-2264032028-1024x683.jpg\")
Merz and Trump during their White House meeting on March 3, 2026. | Andrew Caballero-Reynolds\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\nHe added: \u201cI will not give up on the transatlantic relationship, and I will not give up on cooperation with Donald Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n
Merz on Sunday sought to play down the substance of the dispute, particularly the threat of a U.S. troop withdrawal, framing it as part of longer-running military planning rather than a sudden rupture.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a contingent of American soldiers in Europe that [former U.S. President] Joe Biden stationed here on a temporary basis. Their withdrawal has been discussed for quite some time,\u201d he said, noting that Washington frequently shifts its forces globally.<\/p>\n
On military support, however, the picture is more uncertain. A 2024 U.S. commitment to supply long-range Tomahawk missiles to Germany \u2014 which have yet to be delivered \u2014 has not been renewed under Trump, raising concern in Europe about ongoing deterrence gaps against Russia.<\/p>\n
Merz and Trump during their White House meeting on March 3, 2026. | Andrew Caballero-Reynolds\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had received a commitment from Joe Biden to deliver Tomahawk missiles. Donald Trump has not repeated that. He has not given us that commitment so far,\u201d Merz said.<\/p>\n
However, the chancellor suggested the issue may be less political than practical: \u201cAs I see it at the moment, there is objectively hardly any possibility from the U.S. side to provide such weapons systems.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He added: \u201cI will not give up on the transatlantic relationship, and I will not give up on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1624,11988,38,3976,590,534,8,19,478,1451,391,1574,5283,9,790,606,198,127,7,607,6046,13,805,2073],"class_list":{"0":"post-24155","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-cars","9":"tag-communications","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-exports","12":"tag-friedrich-merz","13":"tag-germany","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-iran","16":"tag-joe-biden","17":"tag-media","18":"tag-military","19":"tag-missiles","20":"tag-negotiations","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-russia","23":"tag-security","24":"tag-social-media","25":"tag-tariffs","26":"tag-top-stories","27":"tag-trade","28":"tag-transatlantic-relations","29":"tag-united-states","30":"tag-war-in-iran","31":"tag-weapons"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116513762380181315","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}